Diagnosis of Dog Faced Puffer

[belly14]

Hi All,

need some help with diagnosis of a new dog faced puffer added to tank about a week ago. Seems healthy and eating and swimming well but just noticed these small white dots and it panicked me slightly…

many thoughts more that welcome,

thanks in advance

C.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi, that is most likely marine ich, Cryptocaryon. Other issues can cause white spots, but in this case, the number of them and the location (including the eyes and fins) means that this is ich.

Treatment would be either copper or hyposalinity, in the absence of any invertebrates. Here is a post on hyposalinity (you may have difficulty getting coppersafe in the UK).

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2021 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[belly14]

Thanks Jay, I thought as much...

The LFS I got him suggested a course of Esha Oodinex as I have seen copper is not safe for puffers...

 

[belly14]

I have also turned UV steriliser flow down to the minimum as read that might help longer term

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I have also turned UV steriliser flow down to the minimum as read that might help longer term

Oodinex is one of those "reef safe" medications that is also pretty "disease safe" as well. It seems to be a mild concentration of malachite green and something related to acriflavine. These products are on the market because there is such a demand to try and treat protozoan diseases with invertebrates present....in every case, it is better to separate the fish and invertebrates and then treat the fish.

UV sterilizers are tricky and do not control ich very well. Indeed, in order to kill the ich theronts, you need to increase the contact time inside the chamber. You can do that by decreasing the flow rate. Unfortunately, that means less water is turned over, and so more theronts escape being exposed to the UV at all, and the disease persists. The UV does not affect the ich trophonts on the fish, nor the reproductive tomonts on the tank bottom. What happens is that the trophonts produce tomonts that fall to the tank bottom and never pass through the UV. Then, after a few days, the tomonts release theronts early in the morning, when the fish are sleeping. These attach to the fish right away, and again, never pass through the UV.

What you are discussing doing is called "ich management". There are other things you can do such as siphoning the bottom of the tank very early each morning to try and remove the tomonts before they hatch. However, in my experience, when a fish has as many ich trophonts on it as yours does, ich management usually doesn't work.

Jay

 

[belly14]

Thanks again Jay, it's a fish-only tank so no corals and just the one cleaner shrimp so a copper treatment in theory would be OK but numerous threads I have read say that's a no for puffers?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks again Jay, it's a fish-only tank so no corals and just the one cleaner shrimp so a copper treatment in theory would be OK but numerous threads I have read say that's a no for puffers?

Ionic copper would be an issue, but if you can source amine-based copper like Coppersafe or Copper Power, that is fine to use with puffers.

What other fish are in with the puffer? Any symptoms on those yet?

The wild card is going to be the cleaner shrimp though - if you move it out of this tank, it may well carry the ich parasite with it, so don't move it into a tank with other fish in it.

Jay

 

[belly14]

alongside the puffer is a clown trigger, magnificent foxface, 2 clowns, 4 green chromis, a chalk goby and a mandarinfish. At the moment all the other seem OK

both copper safe and copper power seem impossible to get here in UK

 

[vetteguy53081]

UK should have copper power which can be dosed at lower level 2.0. and safe for the puffer. UK also has seachem cupramine which is NOT recommended. Ive spoken with others in UK that can get copper power which is similar to coppersafe

 

[Jay Hemdal]

alongside the puffer is a clown trigger, magnificent foxface, 2 clowns, 4 green chromis, a chalk goby and a mandarinfish. At the moment all the other seem OK

both copper safe and copper power seem impossible to get here in UK

Of those fish, the chalk bass and clownfish are the next most susceptible to ich, so watch for spots on them. You could try managing it, and then just be prepared to start hyposalinity if the spots spread or increase in number. Just remember that hypo takes 3 to 5 days to work, so if you wait too long, the infection can take some of the fish out before it begins to work.

Jay